On Ice
by Beth0987
Summary: Horo loved ice skating. Ren really didn't. HoroRen.


Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King.

I've been uploading the detritus of fics saved on my PC. HoroRen yaoi.

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'So. We strap knife blades to our feet and balance on them on a surface with as little friction as possible in order to gain momentum and travel across frozen water?'

'Pretty much, yeah. Only you don't have to make it sound so _boring._ Come on, you'll love it,' Horo gripped Ren's hand tighter and gave him a tug.

Horo and Ren were going to the ice rink. Well, Horo was going to the ice rink, and dragging an extremely reluctant Ren behind him.

'I don't get why you've never been skating before,' Horo said. 'Don't they have winters in China?'

'They do,' Ren growled. 'But we're not stupid enough to go out in them!'

The ice rink came into view, and Horo began to walk faster. Ren had to jog to keep up with him.

'Nearly there,' Horo said cheerfully. He released Ren's hand and pulled the bag containing his skates back up onto his shoulder.

'You know, I really don't think this is a good idea. We could always save our money and-' Ren trailed off. Horo was already inside.

It was very cold in the ice rink, and Ren wished he'd thought to bring a jacket. Horo, of course, was snug in his Arctic-wear-thermal-a-polar-bear-could-maul-me-and-I'd-come-out-smiling coat, which seemed to be surgically attached to him.

'Two students, please,' Horo asked the receptionist. She handed him a receipt, which Horo gave to Ren.

'You have to show that to the guy over there to get your skates,' Horo said, pointing to a stand next to the ice. There were several long benches and a wall of lockers next to them. Horo sat down on one and began to untie the straps on his skates bag. Ren hovered for a moment.

'I don't see why you couldn't have lent me a pair,' he grumbled. 'I mean, people's feet have been in those things, Horo. Their _feet,' _

'Would you rather it was their-' Horo stopped abruptly as a woman walked past with her young daughter. 'Look, unless I called Mom to get the skates I wore when I was six, I'd have nothing to fit you,'

'Fine. Be that way. If I get a load of warts from those germ-infested things, I'm going to make you massage my feet,'

Ren stalked off to the skate-hire counter, leaving Horo wearing an expression of bemused horror.

The skate hire didn't do adult skates to fit him either, and to his eternal mortification Ren found himself wearing a pair of garish lime-green monstrosities with pink smiley faces on the toes. When Horo saw him he had to stuff a sock in his mouth to stop laughing.

'Very…'

'Very _what?_' asked Ren, in a tone that just dared Horo to finish the sentence.

'Nothing… Do you like mine? I just had them redone,' Horo pointed to his own skates.

Ren blinked.

'Flames,'

'Cool, huh?'

'Blue flames,'

'Uh-huh,' Horo nodded happily.

'Has anyone ever told you, idiot, that fire is the anithesis of the very sport you're trying to express an affinity with?'

'No,' said Horo in the tones of someone trying to reason with someone not very bright, ''Cos then I'd have to ask them what antiwhatsit meant. Come on, we've only got two hours,'

Horo stepped lightly onto the ice and glided away, doing a couple of exploratory laps of the rink. He came back to Ren holding the barrier in a death grip and glaring at the ice as if it had personally offended him. Horo was surprised it hadn't melted.

'You do this for _fun_?' Ren asked in a strained voice. Horo attempted to pry his friend's fingers from the safety rail. He might as well have been trying to pull his head off.

'It's easy. You just have to get into a rhythm,'

Horo put an arm over Ren's shoulders, and gripped both of his hands.

'First you have to let go of the rail,' he said, squeezing the hand on the barrier. Slowly, one finger at a time, Ren let go. He stumbled and would have fallen if Horo hadn't been behind him. He pulled Ren back onto his feet, and pushed one skate forward, just hard enough for them to move slightly.

'First left foot,' he instructed. Ren made a tiny movement with his left leg. Horo counted this as progress.

'Then right,' Horo did the same with his other skate, a bit harder. This time Ren's movement could actually, in a bad light, have been mistaken for skating.

'Left. Right. Left. Right. Left,'

They began to actually make progress, and the were nearly halfway round the rink when Horo loosened his grip on Ren. Ren didn't seem to notice, and Horo let go entirely and skated a little bit away.

He went one, two, three left-rights before noticing Horo was gone. Ren turned to see where he was, and promptly fell flat on his face.

Horo had to pick him up again, and tow him back to the edge of the rink. Ren refused to have another thing to do with this stupid… hobby ever again. It was foolish. Dangerous.

'You could kill yourself doing that,' Ren muttered as he sat down on one of the benches round the rink. There was a group of chattering children next to him, and it was beginning to give him a headache. He glanced at his watch, trying to work out how long it would be before he could politely leave. Or impolitely.

He stared enviously at the people skating. How did they do it? They were whizzing round and turning- didn't they realise they could fall at any time? That the surface they were so happily sliding across was slipperier than oil and they had to rely on a fragile mixture of friction, air resistance and centrifuge to keep them upright?

There was a boy who couldn't have been over six doing perfect pirouettes and leaps, a man skating backwards holding onto the hands of a little girl Ren supposed was his daughter, and an army of teenage girls with almost nothing on. Weren't they cold? Ren shivered in sympathy. They were giggling at someone doing similar tricks to the boy, only a lot faster, with tighter turns and smoother movement.

Wait a minute.

Was that Horo?!?!?!

Ren leaped up from the bench and leaned over the ice, trying to get a better look and cursing himself for forgetting to order more contact lenses. It was. There was no mistaking the blue flames on the skates.

And the bright blue hair, come to think of it. Horo wasn't exactly the blend-into-the-crowd type.

Ren ran over as fast as he could and grabbed the back of Horo's jacket.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' he hissed. Horo blinked at him.

'Erm…. Skating?'

'And you have to skate in front of all these people, right?'

Comprehension dawned on Horo's face.

'Jeesus, Ren, I never had you down as a jealous type,'

Ren blushed fiercely.

'I'm not!'

'Boys,' one of the girls said, winking suggestively, 'Do we need to leave you alone?'

Ren tried to splutter a reply, but his mind had gone blank.

'Nice meeting you,' Horo said, and Ren moved away slightly. The girls carried on skating, shooting them surreptitious looks.

'Look, Ren, I was just having fun. If you weren't so uptight all the time you'd know what that was,'

Horo frowned, and turned to go. Ren grabbed his jacket sleeve. He didn't care if he looked clingy.

'I'm fun! I never realised this meant so much to you. If you want me to skate, then I'll learn to skate. I mean, I'll try, I don't know if I can-' Ren gabbled. Horo looked confused.

'I thought you were skating pretty well already,' he said, gesturing at the floor. Ren looked down at the smooth ice below him. Then back up at Horo. Then at the barrier, which was at least ten metres away. Then at Horo.

And fell straight onto his ass.

It was, as he heard a ripple of laughter across the ice, the second most embarrassing incident in his life, after the one involving Jun, a teddy bear and a cocktail shaker. He stared at the floor, too mortified to contemplate trying to get up.

'All right, I take that back,' he heard Horo say above him, then his friend lifted him over his shoulder as if Ren weighed no more than his beloved snowboard. Horo skated back to the edge of the ice and dropped Ren back on a bench.

'You have ten minutes,' Horo warned him, 'Then we're gonna try skating again,'

Ren groaned and was going to protest, but Horo had already gone. And probably wouldn't have listened to him anyway.

So they did, and spent the rest of the afternoon there until Ren could at least move two feet from the barrier.

And Ren, whose ill-fitting children's skates had given him ferocious blisters and for all he knew several virulent foot infections, had to be carried home by Horo.

But Ren's house was too far away, so Ren stayed with Horo for the night.

How they spent that night, however, is a different story…

But Ren made Horo keep the promise to massage his feet.

THE END (for now…)


End file.
